Acknowledgements

The authors of this report are Dr Anne Grunseit, Suzie Forell and Emily McCarron of the Law and Justice Foundation of New South Wales (the Foundation).

The authors acknowledge the assistance of the following staff of the Foundation in the production of this report: Sophie Clarke for her assistance in reviewing the literature; Sheridan Old for transcription, Hugh McDonald and Maria Karras for reviewing the draft report; Gráinne Murphy and Simon Miller for the production of this report. We also thank Hugh McDonald, Mark McPherson and Maree Porter who were part of the interviewing team for this project.

Our thanks also go to the NSW Department of Corrective Services for supporting this research and allowing access to Correctional Centres, inmates and staff. In particular, thanks to Simon Eyland and Kyleigh Heggie from Corporate Research, Evaluation and Statistics for their assistance.

The Foundation is also grateful to Eileen Baldry, Tony Vinson and Monique Hitter for reviewing an earlier version of this report, and to Antonia Lomny for editing the final document.

Finally and most importantly, the authors especially wish to thank all the people, organisations and service providers that contributed their time and insights to the current study, including staff from the NSW Department of Corrective Services. We particularly appreciate the willingness of the prisoners and those recently released from prison, who spoke with us about their legal issues and their experiences of accessing the legal system from prison. Each of these people has made a significant contribution to this research.